A week passed and it seemed all the trails had grown cold. In the cold mist of a dark noon, I went back to my apartment, bringing home Chinese food I wasn’t going to eat, because I wasn’t eating anything. But the Chinese food—the spicy eggplant and beef with broccoli—it reminded me of her. And that was enough for me in these thin days of looking for her.

I unlocked all my locks, stepped inside my dark kitchen, my body so heavy I was surprised I could move. I closed the door behind me and immediately knew I wasn’t alone.

Someone had broken into my house. I gave myself a moment of foolish hope that it was Abby. I imagined her in my bed, the pale warmth of her body such a contrast to the cool of my sheets.

But the person in my house was not Abby. It wasn’t my brother or anyone else who might wish me no ill will.

The person in my house was here to kill me. I could smell it in the air.

Feel it in the hair along my spine.

I set the Chinese takeout onto the island and reached into my coat pocket. Every sense alive to the man creeping through the shadows into the doorway to my left.

“Don’t go reaching for that empty gun,” Sammy said and flipped on the light.

He stood in my doorway in his slick suit and his black leather gloves. Those black leather gloves meant business. They were his I’m here for blood gloves.

I shook out of my coat. If this was going to be a fight, I’d need some range of motion.

If this was going to be a fight, one of us was going to need a body bag.

“Hungry?” I asked, still pretending nonchalance. The fact that my old partner hadn’t shot me told me he wasn’t planning on it. At least not right away. “I’ve got enough here for two.”

“I hate Chinese food,” Sammy said.

“I’m not a fan either,” I said, looking down at what I ordered. “How did you get in?”

“No one is as safe as they think they are, you know that,” Sammy said, with that elegant tilt of his head.

I smiled at him, because I didn’t like the guy, but I knew him and in my cold, sterile life that passed for a relationship. “We doing this?” I asked.

“I’m supposed to fuck you up and get you out of town.”

“And?”

“If you don’t want to leave I’m supposed to kill you and then go find that girl of yours.”

“So?”

He shrugged, that thin shoulder of his belying all of his strength and danger. “I’m not in the mood.”

I laughed because the day Sammy wasn’t in the mood for blood was a rare day.

He lifted one gloved finger, the leather creaking. The last ones had been ruined with Lamar. I hated that I knew that. “Bates does not find this funny.”

“Bates,” I said. “How is that going?”

“Fucker is scarier than Lazarus, that’s for sure. But…” Sammy shrugged and left it at that.

Serving one despot was just like serving another.

“What’s my time frame?” I asked.

“You gotta be gone tomorrow. And I mean it man, you stick around and I get in heat for it, I’m coming back without a warning. I like you and that’s the only reason you’re not bleeding out your face right now. But you don’t listen and I’ll do you like you did Lazarus. And then I’ll have to go after the girl. Or it will be me Bates is after.”

I swallowed, gorge rising in my throat. “Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.”

I watched him walk out the door, just in case he felt compelled to show me how serious he was. I needed no such demonstration. If I was here tomorrow, I was dead.

And so was Abby.

Sammy left and I grabbed that spicy eggplant and heaved it, needing something to explode in this world. Something to happen. Sauce and eggplant splattering against my wall like my brains would.

I left the Chinese food slipping onto the floor, gathered what little of my shit mattered, and went back to Shady Oaks because it was the best lead I had. My brother and my ability to know when he was hiding something the most concrete clue I had in my search for Abby.

Crossing the open courtyard, I ignored the people sitting in lawn chairs around the empty pool like it was summer at the beach, instead of September in some shitty apartment complex in South San Francisco.

When we were kids, there’d been a time when I could intimidate my brother into doing anything. All my chores, sneak me Dad’s beer, carry notes to my girlfriends. Anything. But those days ended a long time ago and if he was somehow protecting Abby’s sister—this could get bad.

But beneath the staircase, the apartment next to Jesse’s opened up and a woman walked out. White blond hair in wild curls pulled up onto her head. Red glasses.

I stopped, stepped sideways into a slice of shadow left on the ground.

I couldn’t get much of a look at her past the hair and the glasses, but every part of my body told me that was her.

That woman, head down, chin tucked into the sparkly scarf around her neck, was Abby’s sister.

My fucking brother was living next door to her this whole goddamned time. I watched her leave, walking past the swimming pool sitters with a small wave and a smaller smile until she was out on the sidewalk, walking left out of sight.

And then I broke into her apartment.

I had to give Abby’s sister credit—she’d tried with this crappy little apartment. The bumblebee curtains were a nice touch, and the bright red kitchen. I wanted to see Abby in this, in these touches. But I wanted to see Abby in everything. My whole life had narrowed down to seeing Abby again.

Just one more time.

Just once, and then I’d let her go.

Charlotte had a computer set up in the corner, quite a system, too. Especially considering the shit lock on the door. My fucking brother needed to be taking better care of her, if they were a thing.

Even as I thought that, I knew what I hypocrite I was. Look how good I took care of my girl.

I circled her desk and jiggled the mouse, and on the screen popped a picture of Abby. I was breathless for a moment. I had, over the last too many weeks, told myself that she was not as beautiful as I’d remembered. That there was no way she could be so perfect. But looking at the picture of Abby with her sister, each of them smiling with more joy than I’d felt in my whole life, I knew she was more perfect.

More beautiful. More warm. More real.

I sat down in the chair on the desk and wiggled the mouse again. A password screen came up, and Domino had armed me with all of Charlotte’s passwords. For a moment, I felt guilty, but it was a minor guilt compared to my others and I swatted it aside like bug.

The password—sister212—was accepted and her landing page opened. She had a ton of files on her desktop. Artwork and research.

I clicked through them as carefully as I could and then—finally – I hit a Facebook messenger window.

She was talking to someone named Cheetara.

Charlotte: Me too. How are you doing?

Cheetara: Fine. I took your advice and made a doctor’s appointment. I can’t keep pretending this isn’t happening to me.

Charlotte: Good for you. Are you going to tell him?

Cheetara: No. He can never know. Not ever.

Charlotte: Is he really that bad?

Cheetara: He’s bad enough that I’m halfway across the country with all your money just to get away from him.

Charlotte: Did he hurt you?

Cheetara: No. He never hurt me. He’d never…do that. But Char, he hurts other people.

Charlotte: Sometimes things aren’t always what they seem.

Cheetara: I saw him kill someone.

I stopped there and stared up at the ceiling for a minute. Jesus, did these two WANT to get hurt? Did they WANT to be found? Wasn’t it basic common knowledge that you didn’t discuss murder on fucking Facebook?

And why was Abby going to the doctor?

Though I knew the answer to that question, down deep in my gut where I couldn’t look at it. Where I didn’t want to look at it.

Abby was pregnant. It was real. She was pregnant with my baby.

The need to find her grew to something out of control. A fire burning through me.

I had to find out where she was. I had to tell her she was safe. That she didn’t need to be scared. That she didn’t need to worry about me ripping her life apart again.

I needed to give her the money and make sure she was as safe as I could possibly make her.

Her and the baby.

Finally, a few blue bubbles down the list I hit pay dirt:

Charlotte: How is the job?

Cheetara: Good. I’m a little surprised how much I like it here.

Charlotte: Surprised? How about shocked? How about I don’t even know you? You went right back to the scene of the worst family vacation in history.

Cheetara: You have no idea how good the air tastes here.

Charlotte: Like horseshit?

Cheetara: I didn’t think I’d stay here. I thought I’d stop, look around and move on. But that Help Wanted sign was up in café and it just…seemed right.

Charlotte: I have a hard time picturing you in a small town.

Cheetara: You and me both. But It’s a relief. He’ll never find me here and the cowboys that come into the café aren’t half-bad.

I stood, picked up the monitor, and smashed it onto the floor, knocking over a bunch of other shit in the process, and the violence sent a thrill through me. Wild and familiar. Something I never thought I’d miss, but there it was.

Everything needed to be destroyed. Her entire Facebook account needed to be scrubbed, because if I found her, so could Bates.

After smashing it all I left Charlotte’s apartment, turned toward Jesse’s to tell him to get Charlotte out of town and if he couldn’t do it, I would—and caught him just as he was about to leave.

He got one look at me and could not hide the fear. Or the guilt. But mostly fear.

And I swallowed down my regret over that.

I couldn’t see the girl, but the way my brother’s eyes kept glancing behind the door it was painfully obvious she was standing right there.

Just as it was obvious my brother would kill me before he let me hurt her.

Abby’s sister.

There was kind of a directionless jealousy I felt, for my brother to have the object of his affections so close, for Charlotte who still had such a connection to her sister. For myself because my brother once felt that kind of protection toward me and clearly didn’t anymore.

And I had no one to blame but myself for all of it.

I couldn’t name it, this pang of grief and happiness. But it was so painful it tied like a knot in my chest.

“Going somewhere?” I asked.

“What do you want?” Jesse demanded, and I wanted to shout that I didn’t have time for this bullshit. He glanced behind the door and my anger at him, at everyone standing in my way, raged out of control.

“You know what I want. I want your neighbor. The blonde with the tits.” I was being an asshole, crude on purpose, putting everyone on edge because I felt like my skin was on fire. I tried to step inside the apartment but he got in my way, not letting me in.

“It’s like that, is it?” I asked.

“It’s like that.”

Fine, I thought. Then it’s like this, and I pulled a gun from the pocket of my long overcoat.

“It’s still like that,” he said.

I turned the gun so it was facing the door, the barrel pointed right at where I imagined Charlotte’s head might be. Or at least close enough to let Jesse know I was serious.

“It doesn’t have to happen like this,” I said. “Just let me in.”

“You hurt her and I will kill you.”

I smiled at his dramatics and then nodded. “I am duly warned.”

He stepped back. Proving once again my theory that an empty gun was just as effective as a loaded gun, ninety-nine percent of the time.

I closed the door behind me and got my first good look at Abby’s sister. This was not the way I’d ever imagined this happening, but it was in the end exactly what I deserved.

And despite the shattering pain of that, I couldn’t help but smile. I could see Abby in her, yes. So much. But I could see all the ways Abby loved her too. The way she stood there with chin up but her eyes so terrified, wearing bright red glasses and a This Pussy Grabs Back tee shirt.

“Charlotte,” I said, feeling awful about the computer I just smashed. She saved everything on the cloud, Domino had found out that much, so it wasn’t all gone. “You are just as your sister described you.”

Charlotte looked at the gun in my hand and sneered. “And you’re just as she described you. A dangerous sociopath.”

Sociopath. Oh, how I wished that were true. Perhaps that would help all of this make sense. But instead I was just a man, doing the best he could, making mistake after mistake.

Smoothly, my brother got between us. I wanted to tell him he shouldn’t worry about me hurting her. But what was the point? I was so damn tired. I put the gun back in my pocket. An empty prop that served its purpose.

“It looks like we’ve fallen in love with sisters. It’s so ironic, isn’t it? I mean the odds have to be… what, one in seven million?” I asked my brother.

“My sister doesn’t love you,” Charlotte said. “She ran away from you because she’s scared of you.”

“I know,” I said. “I know. I wanted… I wanted to protect her from that part of my life.”

“You did a shit job of that.”

“Maybe,” Jesse muttered over his shoulder, “don’t provoke the guy with the gun?”

I pulled the gun back out of my pocket and took the clip out of it and showed it to them.

“Empty,” Jesse said, surprised.

“Yeah,” I breathed and threw the gun and the empty clip on the table. “I’ve been carrying that fucking thing around for two years, most of the time without any bullets. Praying I didn’t have to use it.”

“That,” Charlotte breathed, “sounds awful.”

“Not as awful as actually using it,” I said quietly, staring down at my hands before looking up at Jesse. “I’m out,” I said. “Out of the life. I’m leaving tonight. Debts are paid. I’m done.”

“You’re leaving San Francisco?” Jesse asked.

“I’m going to find Abby,” I said.

“You won’t,” Charlotte said.

“I have a pretty good idea where she is,” I said. “She told me about that vacation your family took when you were fifteen. The ranch and the small town.”

I read a whole bunch of reactions to that across Charlotte’s face, all of them shocked and worried, and then she pulled all of those feelings behind a haughty, angry mask that was so much her sister I felt smacked.

“Well, if you do find her, she won’t have anything to do with you. At all,” she said.

My chest lifted with a soundless laugh. “That is much more likely. Why does she need the doctor?” I asked, the question burning in the darkness of my heart exploding into the air. “Is she all right?”

“I’m not telling you shit,” Charlotte said and I expected nothing less.

“I will find out for myself soon enough,” I said, sounding ominous as hell, and I wanted to tell their terrified faces that I meant Abby no harm. That I would die to protect her from the mess I made, but there was no point. And worse, there was no time.

I wondered, briefly, if this was the last time I would see Jesse. And I found I couldn’t help myself from being his big brother just one more time. I took a deep breath and looked him in the eye, willing him after all these years to feel what we used to have. To trust me like he used to trust me.

“Tell her. Tell her everything,” I said. “If you want a shot with her, you’ve got to tell her. And if she stays after that… don’t let her go.” I then turned to Charlotte. “I’m sorry this is how we’ve met. I hope… well, let’s just say I hope a lot of things.”

My words dried up and my time was gone and my very last chance was slipping right out of my hands, so I just nodded in the end and gave Jesse one last look. Soaking in the man he’d become and glad, at least, that I’d protected him in the small way that I could.

My best was a shabby thing, tattered and small, but I’d done it for him. Given it to him. And it was all I’d had.

“Bye Jack,” Jesse murmured and I walked out the door.

Abby, I thought, now, it was only Abby.